[late]

"Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned."

This Ukraine thing is weird. Why this, why now? What makes this different.

I think one of the guests talking to Chris Hayes last nite put his finger on it. Trump believed his own propaganda.

In the real world, VP Biden was part of a mult-national effort to clean out some of the corruption in Ukraine. So, if there was something illegal about what Hunter Biden was doing, that increased the risk he would be prosecuted. IOW, the exact opposite of what the crazies are saying.

The story started with the Breitbart crowd. The guy that started it has made a career of pretending fiction is factual.

Their goal is to get fake news into the mainstream media, and that is exactly what happened. The NYT mentioned it on page one. Their editors don't want to talk about their mistake.

What happened next is that Trump believed it, and became obsessed with it.

Which meant they created an international buzzsaw, and then walked into it. With Trump's typical disregard of law, ethics or even common decency, he created a mess that one commentator described as "self impeachment".

This controversy was simple enough for Joe Six Pack to understand. It put a country fighting for it's life at greater risk. He used this country like a cheap hooker to try and get himself re-elected.

And yesterday, the former ambassador to Ukraine testified before Congress, and quietly rained fire and fury on the presidency of one Donald J Trump.

This has really turned up the heat on Senate Republicans, it has brought us a step closer to his removal from office. We're not there yet, of course, but we're closer now than I thought we were going to get.

[blackjack21]

In the real world, VP Biden was part of a mult-national effort to clean out some of the corruption in Ukraine. So, if there was something illegal about what Hunter Biden was doing, that increased the risk he would be prosecuted. IOW, the exact opposite of what the crazies are saying.

Biden was no white knight combatting "corruption" in the Ukraine. That doesn't even make sense to most voters, because what the hell would a US Vice President be doing meddling in the internal affairs of a foreign state? The reality is that the neocon/neolib cabal wanted to pry the Ukraine out of Moscow's orbit. Yanukovych had a difficult dilemma: entering into economic deals with the West meant that he'd have to meet EU and IMF demands to buy gas at market prices--something Ukraine could scarcely afford. Similarly, Russia understandably said that if Ukraine wanted closer economic and political ties with Western Europe, Russia had no obligation to subsidize gas to the Ukraine. Ukraine adopted a pro-Russian stance out of economic necessity as neither the US nor the EU was willing to provide economic aid to Ukraine. So instead, they engineered the overthrew the "democratically elected" government of Ukraine and got Poroshenko installed--something a lot of people lament, because many nationalists in Ukraine are essentially fascists.

Early in the EU, the larger, richer powers could afford to buy off the smaller and poorer powers. However, that's not the case anymore, and smaller powers are beginning to understand the problem of the EU. Ireland, for example, cannot negotiate its border situation with a post-Brexit UK, because it has delegated that authority by treaty to the EU. That seems like a stupid move now, but back in the 1990s when all that money was flowing in to Ireland, it seemed like a genius move.

The NYT mentioned it on page one. Their editors don't want to talk about their mistake.

The story checks out and Biden is shown on videotape bragging about getting a prosecutor fired under duress. Who started reporting it is only relevant if the story is manifestly untrue. It's not.

With Trump's typical disregard of law, ethics or even common decency, he created a mess that one commentator described as "self impeachment".

What Trump did is neither unlawful nor unethical. As a matter of law and ethics, he has a duty to ensure that the US Vice President isn't using his office and taxpayer dollars to line his son's pockets.

And yesterday, the former ambassador to Ukraine testified before Congress, and quietly rained fire and fury on the presidency of one Donald J Trump.

She's despondent that she lost her job. So what? Again, nobody can establish a clear violation of any law. People are routinely speaking in abstractions like "abuse of power," which is not a defined criminal process. If you don't like how someone discharges their office, an election is the remedy. Impeachment is only for treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

This has really turned up the heat on Senate Republicans, it has brought us a step closer to his removal from office.

Getting Mitt Romney or Lisa Murkowski to vote for impeachment isn't a big deal. They are self-serving turncoats. You need at least 20 senators from the Republicans, and there is no chance of that happening. The Republicans would be shooting themselves in the head.

[late]

1) Biden


2) What Trump did is neither unlawful nor unethical. As a matter of law and ethics, he has a duty to ensure that the US Vice President isn't using his office and taxpayer dollars to line his son's pockets.


3) She's despondent that she lost her job....misdemeanors.


4) Getting Mitt Romney or Lisa Murkowski to vote for impeachment isn't a big deal. They are self-serving turncoats. You need at least 20 senators from the Republicans, and there is no chance of that happening. The Republicans would be shooting themselves in the head.

1) More to the point, the IMF, the EU and the United States joined up to tamp down corruption. But you can have a brownie point for divorcing reality, I'm in a good mood.

2) That's swamp gas. Sorry.

3)You have problems reading women... look up the meaning of misdemeanor. You should also go over the relevant bits of the Federalist Papers again.

4) Read about Watergate.

But keep up the comedy gold.

[Sivad]

In the real world, VP Biden was part of a mult-national effort to clean out some of the corruption in Ukraine.

Blatant, unmitigated bullshit. I'd say you should be ashamed of yourself but we all know you have no shame.

Like when does someone wake up and decide they're gonna start shilling for a piece of shit like Joe Biden? That's more pathetic than sucking dick for crack, how do these people live with themselves?

[Sivad]

I'd really like to know how people come to the decision to sell their souls and just start telling fucked up lies on behalf of a morally decrepit establishment that has caused such tremendous harm in the world? That is just some slimy shit to be involved in.

[late]

Blatant, unmitigated bullshit.

"European and US officials pressed Ukraine to sack Viktor Shokin, the country’s former prosecutor-general, months before Joe Biden, the former US vice-president, personally intervened to force his removal...


“All of us were really pushing [former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko] that he needs to do something, because the prosecutor was not following any of the corruption issues. He was really bad news,” said an EU diplomat involved in the discussions."

https://www.ft.com/content/e1454ace-e61 ... 5a370481bc

[Stormsmith]

I think one of the guests talking to Chris Hayes last nite put his finger on it. Trump believed his own propaganda.

I think Putin's played him like a fiddle. He's talking President Trump into lifting Arctic sanctions for oil, just when the world has a surplus of oil that the rest of us would prefer to see phased out. I'm fairly sure this was why Tillerson was hired. And the odd thing ia Alaska has a large deficit because oil prices have been falling, and rather than find some other source of revenue, they're expanding oil extraction.

The only person that's making gains in the Ukraine is Putin. He wants to break up NATO. He wants to break up North American - European alliances etc

So Putin plays with President Trump. I suspect a large part is money, and maybe some personal stuff, but the main things are President Trump 's unwillingness to read or rely on his staff (actual professional s) and his positively massive ego.

It worries me Putin is buggering about with weapons, plus Turkey has an estimated 60 nuclear bombs. In fact, there's a lot in Asia.

As to impeachment, I think he will be impeached and if this Kurdish fiasco is as grim as I suspect it will be, Republicans will join in the impeachment no matter how lame the charges are. They just won't be able to stomach endorsing President Trump after this trashing of American security.

'Hell hath no fury as a woman's corns."

Fixed